Imagine, if you will, a quiet day at Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital. Peaceful, even. Kenchington wasn't even bothering to torment the inmates today; she hated to interrupt such lovely silence, for it was perceived by her (and a few others) as so ominous it was delightful. The tides rolled gently onto the side of the cliff, as observed by one Jeremy Goode out the window of Kenchington's office, who was, at present, in desperate need of a breakthrough. You see, I wasn't being accurate in entirety when I said the day was quiet in every room of the asylum. Rather surprisingly, tinny radio had begun to emanate from the room opposite Jeremy's. Very loud, harsh radio. He was expected to make some kind of progress while Kenchington was gone, and he couldn't with this... noise. It just left his mind unfocussed; like he couldn't pay attention to his own thinking.
But anyway, while he was struggling to do a thing, he was thankful that the music happened to be instrumental. At least then there was the small relief that there was no deeper meaning beyond the emotional effect of the tracks. It was therefore helpful that he wouldn't be intrigued enough to listen to the lyrics; listen to the lacklustre statements of love or sex or angst or grief or the odd explicit description of a plan to murder someone. Perhaps he could use those last ones during 'therapy'; say the Silent Singer was telling him to carry out such things. But no; this particular station seemed to be of better quality (musical quality; the sound quality was something entirely different), yet Jeremy was unfortunate enough to be hearing the sort of music you couldn't help but engage in, in some way. The sort of compositions that you were drawn into listening to more closely, on instinct. This particular piece was a duet of sorts between violin and clarinet, performed over a repetitive clopping rhythm and a guitar responding to the melody. It could be a piece quite pleasing in any normal case, when one wasn't trying to concentrate on something else, but the headache-inducing trebles would be unpleasant in any situation. The clarinet sounded hideously distorted. By now Jeremy had scanned over the same section of formula about fifteen times. No advancement had been made whatsoever.
For a moment, Jeremy wondered if Kenchington was playing the music, perhaps as some experiment on another inmate. Musical therapy, perhaps. But no, that was absurd. Why would she interrupt her own Project for a mundane 'test' she could leave to, say, her son? Then again, perhaps she didn't realize Jeremy could hear - or that it was disrupting his work – or perhaps she knew full well and was using the music to manipulate him. Kenchington was a difficult person to predict; there were all the chances she'd patronize, harass, or torture you if it might amuse her (especially if you happened to be getting in the way at the time), and as much as he was aware she was going easy on him, he didn't trust her - he probably never would. And wasn't this an awkward situation! He was left gaping at the various blackboards and open books like he'd never seen them before in his life. God knows what she'd do to him if nothing was done.
It was about that time that Jeremy heard a horrific scream, followed by a muffled explosion. The music was killed just after. Just... what? He rather hoped this was Kenchington's doing; if it wasn't, no one would be on his side. A couple of minutes later, she confirmed his assumption, pacing out from that same room, a Walkman in one hand.
"Well. I'm sure that'll teach him there are to be no personal belongings," she observed, with her usual formal, triumphant tone (so perhaps I've been twice inaccurate; Kenchington was bothering to torment the inmates today). Jeremy made an uncertain nod at the statement, hoping that explosion marked the death of the speaker... but then, the timbre of it didn't sound right. It seemed more... organic. Did that mean—no, the thought was ridiculous! It sounded like it had come straight from a cheap, poorly-written action movie; such an idea was just impossible. Kenchington noticed his silence, looking up. Her voice was now a little indignant; she must have noticed nothing had happened since her previous departure. "And what are you doing standingthere? Isn't there work to be done?"
Jeremy nodded once more with a quiet (albeit concerned) "Yes, Nurse Kenchington." But... no. She couldn't have, could she? He wasn't quite sure why he was so surprised, given her already shaky morality, but here he was.
"In the meantime I'd better go and tell the patients they're having 'ostrich' tonight. Though don't think for a second that you're excluded from the luxury." For the briefest of milliseconds her face possessed a wry smirk as her eyes motioned to the door she entered from; she left the room once more.
Notes: So whoo, this is done! If you get the Christopher Brookmyre reference I love you forever. But... yeah, I'm not sure if Kenchington would kill someone with such a noticeable method of head-explody, but I just randomly had this idea and had to write it. The Walkman was sort of assuming Jeremy was in Ravenhill around the mid-to-late nineties, given that the fire started in 2005 and he wasn't around at that point. Although you still can get Walkmans today and it's probably more alarming that the song this whole fic was centered around wouldn't have been released by then. But yes. This was a drabble for the Shuffle Challenge, the song was Lazy Place by Caravan Palace, and I'm out.